eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Google has added the open-source MEAN stack to its expanding list of development tools that can be implemented more quickly on the Google Compute Engine platform.
The availability and inclusion of the MEAN stack for NodeJS users was announced by Brian Lynch, a Google solutions architect, in an Aug. 14 post on the Google Cloud Platform Blog.
“With a single button click, you can launch a complete MEAN development stack ready for development,” wrote Lynch. “Click to Deploy for MEAN handles all software installs and setting up a sample app for you to get started.”
The MEAN stack includes MongoDB, a leading NoSQL database; Express Web Framework, a minimal and flexible node.js web application framework; AngularJS, an extensible JavaScript framework for responsive applications; and NodeJS, a network applications platform built on Chrome’s JavaScript runtime for server-side JavaScript, wrote Lynch.
“If you’re starting out today, there are a number of development stacks to choose from,” he wrote. “From the original LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) to the [multitude] of other choices, there is a development stack to match your language and experience. For the NodeJS fans out there, the MEAN stack is a great option.”
Google Compute Engine already supports one-click deployment for Cassandra, MongoDB and RabbitMQ. The MEAN stack offers a full-stack JavaScript framework that can help developers rapidly build and deploy their applications. By using the stack of applications, developers can also kick-start their NodeJS development, according to Google.
A completed MEAN deployment includes one development server, which is a virtual machine instance, according to the stack’s FAQs. “After your MEAN stack is running, you can SSH to your instance to do further configuration and testing. When you are done with your development stack, click the Delete stack button on the Click-to-Deploy Web page. This will bring down all instances and destroy the associated data disks.”
Google is often adding new services and tweaking its Google Cloud Platform for users and developers.
In July, Google made it easier for IT users and developers to run their Apache Cassandra database clusters on the Google Compute Engine by adding its own click-to-deploy process using some basic information such as the size of the cluster. The new service provides automatic configuration for each node, including tuned writes for Google Persistent Disk and Java Virtual Machine tuning to perform on Google Compute Engine instances.
Apache Cassandra is a scalable database that offers high availability and high fault tolerance on commodity hardware or cloud infrastructure, according to The Apache Foundation.
The “click-to-deploy” process for Cassandra on Google Compute Engine is meant to help developers get a development or test environment running quickly, according to the service’s FAQs. Detailed information is available about the click-to-deploy process from Google. The deployment of the Cassandra clusters is managed by Google Cloud Deployment Manager, which uses templates to help set up the configurations.
In June, Google began experimenting with a new method to drastically speed up the transfer of large datasets on the company’s cloud storage platform. The process, called Online Cloud Import for Google Cloud Storage, is now in limited preview mode for selected customers to use and test as the system is refined. Interested customers can sign up to participate in the limited preview.
In April 2014, Google announced the availability of its Google Cloud Platform services to the Asia Pacific region as it moves to expand the reach of its cloud services to more developers around the world. The new service availability means that the Google Cloud Platform Website and the developer console will also be available in Japanese and Traditional Chinese.
Also in April, the Google Cloud Platform expanded its capabilities with Hadoop through new Hadoop connectors that can be used with Google BigQuery and Google Cloud Datastore to run Hadoop queries. Also bolstering the cloud platform was a new version of Google App Engine, Version 1.9.3, which was also announced.
Earlier in April, Google unveiled new lower pricing for Google Cloud Platform users through “Sustained Use Discounts” that the company made available to users who run large projects on virtual machines. Under the new pricing scheme, users will save more as they use more virtual machines in the Google Cloud.